5 Great Ways To Shave Strokes Off Your Game

You will hear a billion people tell you 12 billion ways to make you a better golfer. Most involve complicated schemes of knowing exactly where to stand or how to precisely hold a golf club but really, if it was all about grip wouldn’t they insist that you wear two gloves instead of one?

There are some surefire ways I’ve found over the years to drastically reduce your golf score. Some will argue their validity, legality and morality. So what? You end up scoring some low marks for technical merit but the judges will love your artistic impression.

First off…

1. Play The Right Opponent. You know that phrase about being in the right place at the right time? Well that extends to competing against the right person at the right time and in the right place. You don’t want to be challenging insular, uptight know-it-alls when playing golf. To get the most out of your game match yourself up against more “interesting” opponents like people who can’t count very well or people who don’t know the the game very well or people that are blind. You’ll be surprised at how that kind of opponent can do miracles for your golf score.

2. Use Your Alternate Clubs. Your hand wedge and foot putter are both invaluable clubs to use in the right stealthy situation. Proper utilization of these clubs can get you out of some bad lies and much closer to the pin without any extra strokes added to your round.

3. Challenge The Rulebook. When have you ever actually read the rules of golf? There’s this glut of common knowledge out there we all adhere to yet no one really knows the exact rule for every single situation. The next time something contentious comes up, ask to see the rulebook that emphatically states that pulling your ball out from underneath a picnic table and throwing it towards the hole, for example, ISN’T legal. It’s not up to you to prove your innocence, it’s up to them to prove your guilt. What a great country we live in.

4. Insist On Keeping Score. He who controls the pencil pretty much controls the score. You’d be surprised how a 6 can eventually look like a 5 or 15 can magically become a 6 six holes after the fact.

5. Don’t Play A Full Eighteen. Take a look at some of the better golfers’ scores. What are they? 82? 77? 69? Well you have scores like that, only your 74 was achieved somewhere around the 8th hole. The key is in knowing exactly when to end your round.